


Mantras

by roselightsaber



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Jedi Code, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-22
Updated: 2016-12-22
Packaged: 2018-09-11 06:00:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8957908
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/roselightsaber/pseuds/roselightsaber
Summary: Baze and Chirrut's relationship with, and departure from, the Jedi Code, explored.





	

Dedicated to the Force, or to the temple, as they may be, neither Chirrut nor Baze has any particular regard for rules or codes or restrictions. Perhaps that’s what drew them together in the first place–their approaches to the Force and to Guardianship may be different, but they were alike in their uniqueness, refusal to fall in line. They had once both admired the Jedi so; both had grown up on stories of brave warriors wielding the very mystical power they were sworn to protect, both had dreamed that they, too, would one day serve among those ranks. Many an imaginary lightsaber was brandished while sparring as mere children, among the youngest trainees at the temple. 

Jedi occasionally passed through the temple, sometimes with young padawans no older than Baze and Chirrut themselves. They hid in the vestibule and watched the elders bring in precious Kyber crystals for the learners to choose from, each stone soon to become the powerful core of a lightsaber. _When will it be our turn,_  Baze would wonder. Even as a child, it would earn him a scolding from Chirrut to be patient–though the younger boy would sometimes, in his abstruse way, whisper to Baze that he missed the crystals when they left, that they were one of the few things he could see clearly.

_There is no emotion, there is peace._

It wasn’t until both were well into their teen years that the true meaning of the Jedi Code began to solidify for them. Chirrut had always found solace in recitation, in mantras, but following the rules was something more challenging. It was Baze who chided him on this point as they got older– _emotion and passion are not the Jedi way_ , he reminded him. It was a distinction they didn’t quite have words for: Chirrut was spiritual, yes, and deeply so, but Baze was always the more devout, the more dogmatic, as if some part of him still believed that he was a Jedi-to-be a decade or more past the age any Master would take him. More essentially, too, his skills in the Force–his, and Chirrut’s as well–were never those of a Jedi in the first place. Even his senses always felt perilously dim compared to those of the other Guardians. So he masked his shortcomings in conviction, repeated the Code, swore to live the life of the Knight he would never, _could_ never, be.

_There is no ignorance, there is knowledge._

They were enigmas to one another as young men in service of the temple. Chirrut, a man of peace always determined to fight, to break the rules; Baze, a born warrior who only fought to remain a stoic with no passion. Their studies pushed them apart often–interpretations of the Code, of Jedi lore, of tales and texts that felt so distant to them both somehow always managed to leave them arguing. Usually Chirrut tried to patch things up first, but the fact that he couldn’t seem to do so without pointing out the hypocrisy of Baze’s refusal to question dogma while on a search for knowledge rather dragged out the process.

But even the most extreme of disagreements tended to end the same way–sitting side by side atop the temple, under the stars, conceding that neither of them was particularly good at being peaceful and detached. For a man who couldn’t see, Baze would tease, Chirrut always found trouble. And Chirrut, grinning impishly, would respond the same way each time: by slinging an arm around Baze’s broad shoulders and leaning close, and assuring his friend that he was easy enough to find, even for a blind man.

_There is no passion, there is serenity._

“You repeat the Code. You say you _live_  by the Code.” Chirrut complains at last during one such rendezvous. “But tell me, Baze. Do you really believe it?”

“I do.”

“That’s not a real answer. That’s all instinct and no thought.” He smiles warmly. “That’s my role. We can’t both be that way. Then what will we have to argue about?”

He laughs, but insists again. “I believe it, Chirrut. You do too, deep down. I know you do. You’re a spiritual man, a devoted Guardian, so I know you must.”

“I trust in the Force,” He corrects, and, though Baze is not the one without sight here, somehow seems to sneak up on the other with one of those surreptitious half-hugs. “But I am not without emotion, or passion, or a little bit of chaos.”

“That’s for sure.”

“And neither are you.”

“It’s something to strive for,” He answers, exasperated. “Not achieving it doesn’t mean I don’t believe in it.”

“I have peace _because_  of emotion, not in spite of it.” He leans closer and curls his arms around Baze’s, head tilting to rest on his shoulder, and it doesn’t take much more for Baze to instantly doubt the grip he has on his own feelings. “Pushing it away is pushing away the Force. Someday, I fear, the Jedi will be forced to see what I see.”

“Nothing?” He quirks an eyebrow and chuckles as Chirrut draws back to punch him in the shoulder for that.

“I want you to embrace your passion, Baze,” The other scoffs, though the smile pulling at his lips belies his false derision, and he curls close to him again just a little too quickly to maintain the illusion. “But don’t be an asshole.”

_There is no chaos, there is harmony._

At some point, the elders take notice of the fact that the childhood friendship between the two has, perhaps, been sustained too long. Attachments are forbidden, after all. Baze at least pretends to abide by this law though Chirrut has been gleefully throwing his friendships, his overwhelming aura of love, in the face of the elders for as long as anyone can remember. And more and more each day, Baze finds himself following in Chirrut’s admittedly erratic footsteps. The two have always been darlings of the elders, if troublesome at the same time: Chirrut, blind and unassuming, was far and away the most proficient fighter in the bunch, and Baze wasn’t far behind. Chirrut may not have enjoyed Baze’s dogmatism but the elders did, and it earned him a place of respect in the temple as well.

But, at their opposite ends of the spectrum, both push back strongly against the notion that they spend too much time together. Baze knows full well that this is the exact hypocrisy that frustrates Chirrut–a man who is not even a Jedi, clinging to the Jedi Code with one hand while drawing Chirrut ever closer with the other. It all comes to a head when they threaten to send Baze away. It’s not unheard of–Guardians often take such assignments around Jedha or further, but neither Baze nor Chirrut has had the thought to so much as stray from the temple in years. And he almost goes, out of some sense of duty, or perhaps in an effort to prove to the elders (or to himself) that he can be free of attachment.

That night, Chirrut all but drags him up to that place on top of the temple, a place that has come to be _theirs_ , and begs him not to go. Without shame, nothing disguised, no words buried in the intractable, mystical code with which Chirrut often speaks. He just holds his hand and pleads– _don’t go, don’t leave me–_ and even when Baze, voice cracking, agrees to stay, he makes him swear ten times he means it before he’ll believe him. Though it feels to Chirrut almost like an unnecessary formality by then, his heart sings when Baze finally tells him he loves him.

_There is no death, there is the Force._

Baze has given up the Code by the time the temple falls to the Empire, but he doesn’t lose his faith in the Force until he watches Chirrut take a last look–or, his sightless version of it–at the room they shared for so many years, before they’re forced out into the street.

“We are being tested,” Chirrut insists, voice choked and unsteady as his hands smooth over the familiar stone walls. _We are being tortured_ , Baze wants to say, but resists for his partner’s sake. _And the Force has allowed it._

Instead, he swallows hard, and pulls Chirrut away from the arched doorway to their room where he’s tracing cracks in the stone for the last time, and holds him close. “I will never forgive them,” He murmurs, a promise to himself, to Chirrut, to the stormtroopers waiting for them to linger a second too long and give them an excuse to use their stunners. “This is our _home_.”

“My home is with you.” His words are steady now but his fingers tremble as he clutches at Baze’s cloak.

Baze nods, but it’s not enough.


End file.
